Video: Mitt Romney Was "Big Believer" in Getting Government Money in 2002

A 2002 video (below), recently aired by ABC News, shows then-Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney bragging about being able to get taxpayer dollars from Washington, D.C., despite his 2012 attacks on federal subsidies.

Romney said in an address to the New Bedford Industrial Foundation on Oct. 16, 2002: “I am big believer in getting money where the money is. The money is in Washington. I want to go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington to assure that we are taking advantage of economic development opportunities."

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Romney also boasted: “We actually received over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic games. That is a huge increase over anything ever done before and we did that by going after every agency of government.”

Romney presidential campaign spokesman Andrea Saul says the 2002 video did not contradict the GOP candidate’s current message: “Governor Romney supports a permanent ban on earmarks, which are symbols of what’s wrong in Washington.”